


Here's to All the Words We'll Never Speak

by jusrecht



Category: Super Junior
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-09 18:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jusrecht/pseuds/jusrecht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because once upon a time, they could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here's to All the Words We'll Never Speak

**Author's Note:**

> The title came from Rilo Kiley's _Draggin' Around_.

They kiss entirely by accident.  
  
Siwon stares and Kyuhyun stares—but then Kyuhyun laughs and Siwon laughs. Colour high in his cheeks, Kyuhyun takes one step back and says, his voice strangely high-pitched, “You’re drunk.”  
  
Siwon doesn’t deny it. The pleasant buzz in his head allows him no room for denial, so he just continues grinning, wearing the mask of a fool and pretending that his heart doesn’t whimper like it has just been kicked. Something shifts in Kyuhyun’s eyes and Siwon is terrified enough that he opens his mouth first.  
  
“This will be our little secret,” he says, and thoroughly hates himself when Kyuhyun’s smile loses all its timid, uncertain edges and becomes a flawless one—the one he wears in public.  
  
“Yeah,” Kyuhyun says, and maybe there is more to follow, but Heechul and Donghae choose that moment to burst in with another unopened bottle, giggling drunk.  
  
The rest is forgotten soon after.  
  
  
  
  
 _Then one year passes and Kyuhyun is still his little secret._  
  
  
What they have between them is a spark.  
  
And it has never quite gone away. Instead, it flickers to life, blooms, multiplies, a braid of moments scattered across the timeline. Sometimes Siwon looks up and catches Kyuhyun’s gaze—and then they will share a smile, and that smile will stay with him until he goes to bed. And sometimes they bump into each other during practice, lacking grace and coordination alike, but then they will grin (again, always, at each other) and simply wave it away with a touch to a shoulder or an arm. There are also times when Siwon wakes up in the car and finds Kyuhyun asleep, head cushioned on his shoulder, and things will suddenly make too little sense with all the somersaults his heart is doing in his ribcage.  
  
And sometimes he just wants to lean in and kiss Kyuhyun again, but he doesn’t and _won’t_ because life is a long journey and honestly he’s still a little scared. (Besides, they are young still; they have all the time in the world to find out what _this_ is.)  
  
Siwon won’t call it love, although most of the times he isn’t sure why.  
  
  
  
  
 _And three years pass and Kyuhyun is still his little secret._  
  
  
Except this little secret has grown into something else by now.  
  
Siwon has never been particularly sensitive about these things, so when he realises that he is in love, it’s a revelation that blindsides him like an unexpected left hook to the face. It's painful, out of the blue, and completely unforeseen.  
  
The moment is perfectly ordinary. They are on the way to the car after a long, exhausting event and Kyuhyun stumbles—just a little stumble, but his hand automatically reaches out, finding Zhou Mi’s back. Zhou Mi misses a step and Siwon bumps into him, and that’s when he turns around, reads the strain of two hours of sleep and too many schedules on Kyuhyun face, and the world shifts. His heart falters, clenches, and the rest is a plunge into an abyss he can never climb back out from (except he doesn’t know this yet).  
  
“Sorry,” Kyuhyun mumbles. Zhou Mi smiles as Siwon looks on, words disappearing under the weight of the revelation.  
  
  
  
  
 _Then five years._  
  
  
Hard work is the thing people associate him with the most nowadays.  
  
There are dramas, films, commercials, all leading to more recognition, some to highly coveted awards. The group still continues in their own sphere, except now Siwon finds himself missing not only a few weeks’ worth of activities, but months’.  
  
 _How’s everyone?_ he sometimes texts, mostly to Hyukjae, but sometimes to Kyuhyun.  
  
Hyukjae’s answers are nearly always long-winded, but Kyuhyun’s are brief. Then one day it’s _We miss you TT__TT_.  
  
Siwon nearly drops everything then and runs back to that place he still secretly calls home. But in the end, he doesn’t, because he’s a reasonable man—a crying, miserable one at the moment, but reasonable nonetheless. He knows that his future is here, so he types _I miss you too_ but leaves it at that.  
  
He has his eyes set on further heights. Choi Siwon was already born so high; the least he can do is to exceed it, even if only by a little, so he doesn’t stop even when they grow further apart, even though he still finds himself thinking about Kyuhyun sometimes (this never changes, never will, but this is another thing he doesn’t know yet). He sees them in televisions instead, singing, smiling, laughing, and he ignores the hurt and the soundless tears because he has made his choice. Like them, he is now soaring too high, garbed in starlit fame and worldwide renown—and the thing about height is that it skews all perspectives and obscures all the things that matter.  
  
When they meet again, it's in an award show and Kyuhyun pulls him into his arms, his embrace brief, almost impersonal.  
  
“Congratulations,” he tells him, smiling that flawless smile.  
  
And Siwon almost wishes that he knows how to turn back time.  
  
  
  
  
 _And ten years._  
  
  
They meet again at Shindong's wedding, two months after Kyuhyun came back from the army.  
  
Seeing him again for the first time in years is something of a shock for Siwon. He is dressed all in white—they all are, a tribute to the first among them to tie the knot—and in the soft glow of autumn sunset, Siwon holds his breath and wonders if between this and that and not looking back, he has forgotten how beautiful Kyuhyun can be.  
  
Then a tall, pretty woman in a pale blue dress comes and slips a hand into the crook of Kyuhyun's arm.  
  
It takes Siwon a while to break out of his stupor and introduce his own girlfriend. Kyuhyun's smile is still that practiced, flawless one—even _more_ flawless now, and Siwon finds himself wanting to do something silly, like kissing him on the forehead (like he did one time, _five_ times) if only to see another expression on the younger man's face.  
  
“You look good,” he says instead. That flawless smile quivers, then splits into a smirk.  
  
“You’ve looked better,” Kyuhyun says, eyes alight with something more than just amusement, and Siwon begins to realise that the thing with his little secret has never gone away in the first place.  
  
The reverse process continues as Kyuhyun finally succumbs to the crowd’s pleas and sings a song for the bride and groom. But it isn’t until Ryeowook’s turn, until he has Kyuhyun by his side once more and they are standing too close (like the old times), leaning toward each other, heads touching, flirting with fates (like the old times too), that Siwon _knows._  
  
It is Kyuhyun who tilts his head slightly to whisper in Siwon’s ear, “You’re happy, aren’t you?”  
  
Siwon really wants to kiss him then. He has one hand on the jut of Kyuhyun’s hip and there is the soft caress of Kyuhyun’s breath against the curve of his jaw and the warmth of Kyuhyun’s back pressed-but-not-quite against his chest. He only has to angle his head a little and runs with that chance, this time.  
  
“Yes,” he answers instead, because it’s the right thing to say.  
  
Kyuhyun smiles, nose brushing his cheek, hand tightening momentarily on his wrist. Then Ryeowook ends his song and they break apart.  
  
Fifteen seconds later, Siwon realises that Kyuhyun has walked away with Siwon’s heart still firmly clutched between his beautiful, slender fingers.  
  
  
  
  
 _And twenty._  
  
  
“You look old,” is Kyuhyun’s first greeting, three heartbeats after they clapped eyes on each other again after so many years.  
  
Siwon grins and slides into the empty seat next to him. “But handsome still?”  
  
Kyuhyun rolls his eyes and mutters something under his breath. Siwon keeps grinning because this is a reunion and he hasn’t seen any of the guys in such a long time, so he has made up his mind to be happy. They laugh, they joke, they gossip, they reminisce, then make jokes again about the golden past, but at least each and every one of them is wearing a smile.  
  
Then somewhere between Jongwoon’s awkward attempt at dancing his old moves and EunHae’s raucous laugh, he turns toward Kyuhyun and in there, in the look of Kyuhyun’s eyes, is a step back in time.  
  
“I’m happy, you know,” he says, and it nearly catches Siwon off guard.  
  
“So am I,” he hears himself answering after a dangerous pause.  
  
They share a smile, and then Kyuhyun begins talking about his son, about the boy’s obsession to computer games (Siwon raises his majestic’s eyebrows here) and how he often neglects his homework to ‘hone his skill’, so to say. But then Kyuhyun laughs and the brightness in his eyes is unparalleled as he describes, step by step, how the boy beat him for the first time.  
  
In return, Siwon tells him about his own daughter, how he thinks that he's the prettiest girl in the world—and no, that isn't daddy's talk, he defends himself when Kyuhyun snickers—and what a great voice she has and how much she likes singing and just how much she is absolutely his precious princess.  
  
 _And she has your smile, somehow,_ but this he doesn't say out loud. Because when Kyuhyun smiles, now with crow’s feet and all, he can still make Siwon feel like the whole world is smiling at him too. So he looks away at all the right moments and neatly sidesteps any dangerous pause before he can think about kissing him and taking chances long past and gone.  
  
Memories and what-if's are two different things. There will always be a little too much pain in the latter—this he knows from experience—and so he stops thinking and keeps smiling and simply breathes with the ache.  
  
Until silence consumes all else and things unsaid remain unsaid.  
  
  
  
  
 _And thirty, forty, fifty years, and still Kyuhyun remains his little secret._  
  
  
Choi Siwon has three great loves in his life.  
  
The first and the indisputable is God. Siwon likes to think that he isn’t too much of a disappointment in this particular area (at least most of the times) but this is not for him to judge.  
  
The second is life itself, and this is perhaps a little clearer. He is a good husband and a good father (if too busy sometimes) and he is happy enough, even in his old age. His children always visit him on his birthday and Christmas, and his grandchildren love him because he's the generous grandfather who always spoils them rotten. He is still the head of his company, now watching new, young talents bloom under his guidance—like _they_ did once. All things considered, Choi Siwon does well in life, and no one who sees him can say otherwise.  
  
The third, the last, and the only one he sacrifices for the sake of the rest, is that little secret he keeps so close in his heart. That secret stays with him throughout adulthood and middle age and beyond, until it becomes one with him and blends with his soul and his heartbeat and his every drawn breath. Until it ceases to be anything else but a secret.  
  
And finally, until he buries it with Kyuhyun on a winter day, one week before Christmas.  
  
Siwon has never known what a cold, bitter, crushing, painful regret _not-saying-something_ can be until that day, when he stands next to Kyuhyun’s casket and receives every piece of his broken heart back in his hand.  
  
Then it’s a matter of moving on and forgetting, like he has been doing all his life. Time takes care of the rest as he loses a layer of himself each day, stealing silent and unnoticed as only old age can.  
  
But every now and then, there will be a rainy afternoon, or a snatch of an old song, or a forgotten photograph, or an achingly familiar smile on the wrong face, and suddenly he will find tears running down his face because _dear God_ —once upon a time, they could have been.  
  
They could have been.  
  
  
  
  
 _In the end, for the rest of Siwon's life, Kyuhyun has never been anything but his little secret._  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
“-and what about you, Kyuhyun- _ssi_? What do you imagine yourself to be doing ten, twenty years from now?”  
  
Siwon is startled out of his reverie, wistful threads of the daydream still floating about him in misty weightlessness. There is a lull in the crowd as they all wait for an answer. Siwon turns his head slightly to the left and their gazes meet, for the hundredth, thousandth, millionth time. Then Kyuhyun smiles, a quiet, little smile that tears at Siwon's heart because he's a coward and Kyuhyun is his little secret and will always be.  
  
“Being Cho Kyuhyun,” Kyuhyun answers simply, prompting laughter and cheer from the fans. “And singing, of course. I can't imagine letting that go.”  
  
“Of course. And you, Siwon- _ssi_?”  
  
It takes Siwon a while to come up with an answer. “I have so many things I want to do,” he says slowly, but each word carries the weight of honesty, “but my greatest hope is that ten, twenty, thirty years from now, I will be living with as few regrets as I can.”  
  
And this is why he finds himself writing on a piece of pink paper (a part of the decoration for the Valentine’s Day event). And although his fingers shake so badly, although words fail and flounder in the vast depth of such honesty, he lets the breadth and width of his emotion fills the space.  
  
 _I love you. I’ve been in love with you for so long but I’m too much a coward to say anything. But today is Valentine's Day and I don’t want to have any more regret, so. Will you be my Valentine?_  
  
Then he takes a deep breath, folds the paper twice, and lets it fall into Kyuhyun's hand.  
  
  
 ** _End_**  
  
  


—

  
  
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End file.
